Branch partnered with Recess for an exploratory day camp where youth became urban farmers for the day at Alemany Farm!

We started the day like any farmer would: weeding our crops! In this case, big beautiful collard greens. We then moved onto our harvest, which included lettuce, edible flowers, tree collards and sour grass...yummm! To wash our hands for lunch we used the native ceanothus flower! After our bellies were full from lunch, we recorded our days adventures in our nature journals with Dominique. We also sat silently next to our favorite new plant, and drew it in its entirety. We brought our drawings back to our community and the other members had to guess what our plant was! We continued by drawing stories of our day and some animals we saw on the farm.

Afterwards, Booka processed the harvest with the campers and made a delicious and healthy salad dressing with local honey, apple cider vinegar, olive oil and salt. Everyone became expert tasters of new veggies, and found new ones they loved....or didn't love so much! Sour grass was a big hit, and became the campers mission to forage as much as possible. Sour grass is also known as an invasive weed, so fellow farmers at Alemany were quite happy.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and like most farmers after a long day of work and play, we were all ready for a nice rest.

Maybe you've been hearing alot lately about Honey Bees. Have they discovered what Colony Collapse Disorder is really all about? We are learning more than ever about the relationship between our fuzzy friends and the way they react to harsh chemicals in the air, and to the radiation created by cellphone towers and signals.We're not experts, but we do know this much - bees are some of the oldest living insects. They needed to be treated with special care so that we can protect and preserve our agricultural crops. Both native bees and honey bees are vitally important to our ecosystem. Among our BRANCH leadership team, we have two pollinator specialists, Booka Alon and Lindsey Whited, who participated in the Pollinator Training presented by the Xerces Society, to uncover rare and fascinating facts about all types of bees. We will be sharing the highlights with youth at our Urban Ecology Camp this summer.

With a very heavy heart, we bid farewell to Hayes Valley Farm, and said goodbye to a very special place.

The Branch team met together for several months before the end of May, knowing our final days at the farm were approaching fast. How do we continue this important work? How do we say goodbye to such meaningful relationships? We decided that our story did not have to end... it could continue on! And so we BRANCHED off, and are forming a new educational endeavor. Renewing our sense of purpose, the youth and teachers we met at Hayes Valley Farm gave us the motivation to continue where we left off. So we're back... to bring the families and schools of San Francisco more lessons in Ecology and Agriculture. Introducing BRANCH . . .

Connecting local food and ecology through placed-based nature and art explorations.